beast | teen wolf

11 | the bus ride

"He's dead. I can't believe he's dead..."

Thunder boomed overhead. Coach Finstock blew his whistle, turned around and shouted, "Back to your seats."

    Dylan and a group of other kids boarded a bus and were on their way to the cross country meet. They had already been on the bus for three hours and there was a slight thunderstorm warning. Dylan sat in the middle of the bus in the seat in front of Boyd and Isaac who sat together behind her. Scott and Stiles sat at the back. Ethan - one of the twins - sat a few seats behind and across Dylan and her friends with Danny beside him and, because he was on the lacrosse team and it was mandatory for lacrosse players, Elijah sat at the front with his friends.

    "Stop thinking about it, man," Isaac said to Boyd.

    "Like you're not thinking about it, too?" Boyd spat back.

    "How about you both stop thinking about it," Dylan said. She laid in her seat with her head up against the window behind her and her eyes closed, her hands over her stomach.

    After the fight last night, Dylan was wracked with guilt. She watched as both Charlie and Derek plummeted to their deaths. She was almost too stunned to move. Isaac picked her up and practically had to drag her out of the building. The entire time, the scene played over and over in her mind. Seeing the fear and tears in her big brother's eyes as he fell in slow motion hitting the ground and landed on top of Derek, blood covering his body.

    What took so long? What happened? Are you okay? Boyd and Cora asked her and Isaac as they exited the building. But Dylan couldn't spill any words. Utter any sound. She was frozen. She was numb. She couldn't even cry. The look in her eyes was just empty. Isaac explained what happened to them and the two immediately embraced her in a hug, which she barely knew was happening.

    Isaac eventually went back to Scott's and Boyd went home. Dylan was stuck with what to do next. Go home and explain to the Hawke's that Charlie was dead because he got caught in the crossfire between Dylan and a pack of Alpha werewolves? Reveal everything about her and about the secret Benjamin had been keeping from his family?

    Dylan wasn't the only one who lost someone. Cora did too. And she didn't want to be alone. She just got her brother back and he was gonna almost in an instant. So she asked Dylan if she could stay the night. And she did. But she barely slept. She laid in Cora's bed at the loft next to her, staring at the ceiling. Every time she closed her eyes, all she heard was her echo, painful scream calling out Charlie's name and his face as he slowly fell to his death.

    When the morning rolled around, Boyd and Isaac showed up at the loft and told her she needed to get ready for the cross country meet she already signed herself up for. And even though it was the last thing on her mind, she needed to go. And so there she was on a Wednesday morning at nine o'clock in the morning. Sitting on a stinky bus with sweaty teenagers and a cranky coach where they'd already been on the bus for three, almost four hours, stuck in traffic and just hoping that they missed the meet.

    The bus was moving through the traffic. When it got caught behind a stack of stopped cars, the bus driver slammed on the brakes, causing the bus to rattle and Dylan to groan as she caught herself on the seat in front of her.

    "Dylan, are you okay?" Isaac asked her.

    She groaned, squeezing her eyes shut and holding a hand over her stomach. "Peachy."

    "Have you still not healed?" Boyd asked.

    She exhaled. "I will," she said. "It just takes longer because it's from an Alpha."